Ludhiana School Girl's Rape Case: SC Acquits Man 17 Years After FIR
In the Ludhiana rape case Supreme Court acquittal, Paramjit Singh Bedi was cleared 17 years after the FIR — the top court found the trial court’s reasoning on consent “convoluted.”
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, October 1
The Supreme Court has acquitted a Ludhiana man of rape, setting aside convictions by both the trial court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in a case that took 17 years to reach finality: from the registration of the FIR in 2009 to the apex court’s judgment this week.
A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar allowed the criminal appeal filed by Paramjit Singh Bedi, holding that the prosecution’s case was “riddled with contradictions” and that the trial court had erred in believing the complainant’s testimony selectively — disbelieving her on one charge while convicting the accused on a closely linked one arising from the same set of facts.
The Ludhiana rape case
Ludhiana rape case: According to the prosecution, the complainant — then a student of Class VIII at a Government School in Ludhiana — left her house on the evening in June 19, 2009, to buy groceries from a neighbourhood shop. She was accosted by Bedi, a family acquaintance whose daughter was her friend. He told her he wanted her to meet his daughter. She agreed and got into his car, in which two other boys were already seated.
Bedi allegedly took her to LIG Flats in Ludhiana, where the two boys got out and left in the car. The prosecution’s case was that he kept her there for two days, during which he had intercourse with her against her will. On June 22, he allegedly took her to Malerkotla on a scooter and confined her in a room in an abandoned factory, where the alleged assault continued. When she objected, he allegedly threatened to kill her.
On June 25, 2009, Bedi brought her back to Ludhiana. They were intercepted by her father and police officials who had been searching for her. Bedi was apprehended after he tried to flee.
An FIR was registered under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 366A (procuration of a minor girl) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code. After investigation, police filed a chargesheet under Sections 366 and 376 IPC.
TRIAL COURT: ACQUITTED ON KIDNAPPING, CONVICTED ON RAPE
Ludhiana rape case: The trial — before the Sessions Judge, Ludhiana — saw 11 prosecution witnesses examined, including the complainant, her father, her aunt, two doctors, and the then-head mistress of her school.
On the kidnapping/abduction charge under Section 366 IPC, the Sessions Judge examined conflicting evidence on the complainant’s date of birth. The prosecution’s case rested on a birth date of March 13, 1994, but the court found the oral and documentary evidence — including school records and family testimony — insufficient to establish this beyond reasonable doubt. An ossification test conducted at Civil Hospital Ludhiana had placed the complainant’s radiological age at 17 to 19 years, with the doctor noting in cross-examination that there could be a two-year margin of error either way, and that the complainant was likely between 18 and 19 at the time of examination. The Sessions Judge accepted her age as 19 — meaning she was a major at the time of the alleged incident, and therefore could not have been “kidnapped” under the legal definition, which applies to minors removed from lawful guardianship.
On abduction, the judge examined the complainant’s own account of travelling by car through busy, brightly lit parts of Ludhiana, and later riding pillion on Bedi’s scooter to Malerkotla — a journey of about 90 minutes through multiple intersections where the scooter stopped repeatedly. The complainant did not raise an alarm, attempt to get off, or seek help from passersby at any point during either journey.
The Sessions Judge held this raised serious doubt about whether she had been taken anywhere against her will, and acquitted Bedi of the Section 366 charge. Neither the state nor the complainant’s family appealed this finding, so it became final.
On the separate Section 376 (rape) charge, however, the same judge reached the opposite conclusion. He noted the complainant’s testimony that she had raised an alarm while confined in the room at Malerkotla, though no one heard her; her father and aunt’s testimony that she was recovered from Bedi’s company; and medical evidence who examined the complainant on June 26, and found no external injuries but recorded the presence of spermatozoa in a vaginal swab. Applying the principle of “last seen together,” the Sessions Judge held the prosecution had proved rape beyond reasonable doubt.
Ludhiana rape case: Addressing the apparent contradiction between the two findings — that the complainant had voluntarily accompanied Bedi (366) yet had been raped against her will (376) — the Sessions Judge reasoned in his written judgment that this was not necessarily inconsistent, observing that “some daring women also choose to travel to far off places in the company of men,” and that a woman might agree to accompany a man and even spend a night with him without consenting to sex.
On June 1, 2012, Bedi was convicted under Section 376 IPC and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of ₹5,000.
HIGH COURT AFFIRMS; SUPREME COURT GRANTS BAIL IN 2015
Ludhiana rape case: Bedi’s appeal before the Punjab and Haryana High Court was dismissed in 2013, with the High Court affirming the conviction and invoking the presumption under Section 114A of the Evidence Act, 1872 — under which, once a prosecutrix denies consent, courts must presume absence of consent unless rebutted.
Bedi then moved the Supreme Court.
THE DEFENCE’S CASE
Ludhiana rape case: Before the Supreme Court, Bedi’s counsel, Rajiv Kataria, argued that the prosecution was the product of a civil dispute: the complainant’s father had allegedly borrowed ₹1,50,000 from Bedi and not repaid it, and when Bedi pressed for repayment, he was allegedly threatened with implication in a criminal case. Bedi was also a tenant of a relative of the complainant’s family, with a separate civil suit pending over the tenancy — a connection the family had initially tried to distance itself from in testimony, before the complainant’s aunt admitted the relationship under cross-examination.
The defence argued that the Sessions Judge’s own findings on the Section 366 charge — that the complainant was an adult who had not been kidnapped or abducted — should have precluded a rape conviction arising from the same facts, since the court had effectively found she travelled with Bedi voluntarily at every stage, including two separate journeys through crowded, well-lit areas without any attempt to seek help.
The defence also pointed to the medical evidence showing no internal or external injuries, and noted that her clothes were recovered from the scooter’s storage compartment, which it argued was consistent with the trip being pre-planned and consensual rather than a case of confinement.
The state argued the conviction was fully justified, citing the complainant’s age as recorded in her school certificate (around 15 years at the time) and the Section 114A presumption against consent once she had denied it in evidence.
WHAT THE SUPREME COURT HELD
Ludhiana rape case: The bench’s central finding was one of internal consistency: that a court cannot disbelieve a witness’s account for the purposes of one charge while relying on the very same testimony to convict on a closely connected charge arising out of the same transaction. “There cannot be partial rejection of the evidence of the prosecutrix for the purpose of Section 366 IPC and partial acceptance of the very same statement for the purpose of proving the charge under Section 376 IPC,” the bench held.
“If the evidence of the prosecutrix is of unimpeachable character, it has to be accepted in its entirety.”
Reviewing the complainant’s testimony in detail, the bench noted several internal contradictions — including conflicting accounts of the return journey from Malerkotla to Ludhiana (she testified in examination-in-chief that she and Bedi returned by car and were intercepted, but in cross-examination said they travelled back by train, ticketless, and that she asked Bedi to drop her home).
The bench also noted that she could not recall the car’s number or colour, could not name the two boys allegedly present, and — as the Sessions Judge had already found — did not raise any alarm or attempt to escape during either of the journeys through crowded, lit areas, despite later testifying that she had raised an alarm while confined indoors.
Ludhiana rape case: The bench held that “mere presence of spermatozoa in the vaginal swab of the prosecutrix would not prove rape given the surrounding circumstances,” and that her “denial of consent must be seen in the overall context of her testimony.”
On the Sessions Judge’s reasoning that voluntary travel and companionship do not preclude non-consent to sex, the bench noted this “may be true” in principle but found it did not fit the facts of this case, where the complainant had been absent from home for five to six days, travelling with Bedi throughout. Separately, the bench observed that the trial judge’s use of the word “daring” to describe such women was “totally uncalled for.”
The Supreme Court held that the prosecution’s case did not meet the standard required for a rape conviction, stating that while Bedi’s conduct “may be immoral and unethical,” that alone would not justify conviction under Section 376 IPC “without any clinching evidence,” and that such a charge “must be proved on the basis of hard evidence and not on the basis of surmises and conjectures based on the value judgment of the presiding judge.”
The Court set aside both the trial court’s 2012 judgment and the High Court’s 2013 judgment, and acquitted Bedi of the Section 376 IPC charge. The criminal appeal was allowed.
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